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Felix Baumgartner’s name is forever etched in the history of extreme sports as someone who consistently pushed the boundaries and achieved remarkable feats.
In today’s article, we take a look into his life as we find out more about his cause of death and how it all happened.
Felix Baumgartner’s Biography
Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil, and BASE jumper. His mother Eva gave birth to him on April 20, 1969, in Salzburg, Austria. Gerard, his younger brother, is his name. Baumgartner had a childhood dream of flying and skydiving.
Baumgartner’s extreme sports career began in the Austrian military, where he received training in parachute jumping, including landing on small target zones.
Throughout his career, he immediately became known for the perilous nature of the acts he did.
Baumgartner set a world record in 1999 by performing the highest parachute jump from a skyscraper, leaping from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Then, on July 20, 2003, he created history when he became the first person to skydive over the English Channel while wearing a specially designed carbon fibre wing.
However, some BASE jumpers claimed that Baumgartner’s wing was a carbon copy of a prototype made by Alban Geissler and Christoph Aarns.
Baumgartner continued to set records and push the boundaries of what was thought to be achievable in extreme sports. When he jumped 29 metres from the hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, he set the world record for the lowest BASE jump ever.
He was also the first person to BASE jump from France’s finished Millau Viaduct and Sweden’s Turning Torso skyscraper.
Furthermore, on December 12, 2007, he set another world record by jumping from the observation deck of Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, which at the time was the world’s tallest finished structure.
Baumgartner’s most famous achievement, however, occurred on October 14, 2012, when he jumped to Earth from a helium balloon in the stratosphere as part of the Red Bull Stratos project.
This jump broke several world records, including skydiving for an estimated 39 km and achieving a high speed of 1,357.64 km/h, or Mach 1.25.
He was the first person to breach the sound barrier relative to the surface without the use of a vehicle. Although he still retains some records, his departure altitude record was broken in 2014.
Baumgartner’s career has been fraught with controversy. He was convicted of violence and fined in 2012 after slapping a Greek truck driver following a minor altercation.
In 2016, he stirred outrage in Austria by making anti-refugee statements and backing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbรกn for the Nobel Peace Prize.
After Facebook deleted his fan page, Baumgartner claimed he had become too uncomfortable for “political elites.”
Baumgartner has also had a colourful personal life. He dated Playboy German playmate Gitta Saxx and then married model and former beauty queen Nicole Ttl.
They split up in 2013. He has been in a relationship with Romanian television broadcaster Mihaela Rฤdulescu since 2014.
Felix Baumgartner’s Cause Of Death
Felix Baumgartner is said to have died while trying to perform a very high jump. He was 54 years old when he died.
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